RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Elizabeth WyvHl, 1 occurs 1530, died 1534 

 Margaret Hard wick, 2 last prioress, elected 



1534 



A pointed oval seal of Prioress Isolt de 

 Beauchamp, attached to a charter 3 dated 

 Feast of St. Valentine, 1325-6, represents the 

 Virgin Mary, full length, the Holy Child with 

 nimbus on her left arm. The legend, which 

 is defaced, runs : ... p. ... DICAT. VGO 

 MAR[IA]. 



5. THE PRIORY OF ANKERWICK 



The priory of Ankerwick 4 seems to have 

 been founded during the reign of Henry II., 

 probably not before n6o, 5 by Gilbert de 

 Muntfichet, lord of Wyrardisbury, whose son 

 Richard was also reckoned as a founder and 

 benefactor. This is another poor and small 

 monastery of which very little is known ; it 

 was dedicated to the honour of St. Mary 

 Magdalene. At the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century there were six or seven nuns 

 besides the prioress : an income of about 20 

 would probably never have supported more. 

 And yet we find here, as at Ivinghoe and 

 Little Marlow, the names of some well-known 

 county families among the prioresses. 



Of the external history of the house abso- 

 lutely nothing is known : it probably went 

 through the same struggles as -other small 



> Visitations of Longland, 1530. 



Line. Epis. Reg. Inst. Longland, 1534. 



3 Harl. Chart. 84, f. 54. 



* The name of Ankerwick is not found in 

 Domesday : it suggests that the priory was built 

 on the site of an ancient hermitage. 



5 It has been suggested that the priory was of 

 earlier date, from the mention of ' Hugh abbot of 

 Chertsey ' among its benefactors (there was an 

 abbot of that name at Chertsey early in the twelfth 

 century). But the charters referring to Wyrardis- 

 bury Church in Hist.Mon. S. Petri Glouc. \. 164-1 74 

 make it clear that an earlier date than 1 1 54 would 

 make it impossible for Gilbert father of Richard de 

 Montfichet to be the founder. Robert Gernon 

 was the Domesday tenant of Wyrardisbury, and 

 granted the church to Gloucester Abbey ; William 

 de Muntfichet succeeded Robert Gernon and lived 

 all through the reign of Henry I., for he founded 

 Stratford Abbey in 1135 ; his son Gilbert, founder 

 of Ankerwick, was a minor at the time of his father's 

 death and through the civil war under Stephen, 

 and not able to act on his own account till the reign 

 of Henry II. was well begun. The name of Gilbert 

 de Muntfichet occurs in the Red Book of the Ex- 

 chequer (Rolls Sen), i. 38 and 730, under the years 

 1167-8 : his son Richard's from 1 187 to 1212. The 

 events mentioned in Curia Regis R. 48 go back to 

 the year 1 182. 



monasteries during the fourteenth century, 8 

 and the death of a prioress (unnamed) is 

 recorded in I349- 7 We may surely hope that 

 in the course of three or four hundred years 

 it was in some sense a source of blessing to the 

 neighbourhood, although of this we have 

 no record. It was surrendered some time 

 before 8 July, 1536, when the prioress, 

 Magdalen Downes, received a pension of 5 

 a year. 8 



What we know of the internal history of 

 this house we must frankly own is not greatly 

 to its credit ; yet the recorded episcopal 

 visitations are separated by considerable spaces 

 of time, and it would be rash to conclude from 

 their tone that the monastery was never in a 

 very satisfactory condition. As early as 1 197 8 

 a single runaway nun managed to give the 

 priory a good deal of trouble. She is de- 

 scribed as ' A. the daughter of W. Clement,' 

 and had been fifteen years professed ; at the 

 end of that time she grew weary of the cloister 

 and returned to her friends. Now if she had 

 only asked them for shelter and protection, 

 very little might have been heard of the affair : 

 she would have been ordered to return, and 

 excommunicated if she did not obey ; and 

 that might have been the end of the matter. 

 But she was bold enough to claim a share in 

 her father's property on the ground that she 

 had been forced into the monastery against 

 her will by a guardian who wished to secure 

 the whole inheritance ; and this roused her 

 own relations against her. They appealed to 

 no less a person than the pope himself, Celes- 

 tine III., who first appointed delegates to 

 hear the case, and then, as the nun still proved 

 difficult to deal with, sent a formal letter 

 to be published by the Abbot of Reading and 

 the prior of Hurley, ordering her to return to 

 her monastery on pain of excommunication. 

 The affair came at last into the Curia Regis, 10 



8 During the reign of Edward III. the prioress 

 petitioned Parliament for redress, complaining that 

 Hugh le Despenser the elder had disseised her con- 

 vent of 59 acres of land in Datchet. Whether her 

 petition was granted is not recorded. Rolls of 

 Parliament (Rec. Com.), ii. 406. 



7 Line. Epis. Reg. Inst. Gynwell, 26. The 

 conge d'elire is dated II Kal. May 1349, but the 

 names of the prioresses are left blank. 



s Aug. Off. Misc. Bks. 232, f. 37. 



Curia Regis R. 48, m. 14. 



10 This would be in the natural course after the 

 excommunication had been pronounced, and the 

 case came within the reach of the secular arm. The 

 Roll is dated 9 John : but the letter of Celestine 

 III. of which it contains a copy is dated in the 

 5th year of his pontificate, i.e. 1197. Some parts 

 of the membrane are very much faded, and doubt- 

 less some points in the story have been missed. 



355 



